


Hey Girlie

by orphan_account



Category: Bloodborne (Video Game)
Genre: 'cause Doll needs to talk strange, Angst, F/M, Two Shot, bad Shakespeare quote, how the heck do you spell yahrnhamh, little HunterxDoll mentioned
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-16
Updated: 2016-07-16
Packaged: 2018-07-24 10:04:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7504150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Why? Because this fucking game tore away my heart and stomped on it ‘till there were a lot of meaty confetti, that's why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hey Girlie

The night was dark and the beasts would have been roaming the streets for who-knows-how-long, since no one could tell when the Hunt would have ended.  
Her dad had been away from home for quite some time now, and her mum had gone out to look for him, but that was hours ago. Grandad was sleeping, and all she could do was crouch underneath the table, embracing her legs tighter to her chest as the beasts roared outside.

Suddenly, silence was the only thing she could hear, before slashing sounds and groans followed. Heavy steps approached her window.  
She hesitantly crawled out of the table she was hiding under and stepped on top of a chair, cautiously taking a peek outside of the window.

“A-are you a hunter?”  
The figure standing outside nodded knowingly and kept staring at her without muttering a single word.

“Could you please find my mum, sir?”

\---

She didn’t think he would, but the stranger kept coming back. Sometimes it was to assure her and make sure no beast was bothering her, sometimes he brought back little sweets he had managed to find in the other abandoned houses.  
Yet, as far as he had told her, there was no sign of her mother.

Time flew by at an impossible rate, seemingly still. She could only keep thinking and crying.  
A gentle tap shook her out of her thoughts. The by now familiar gentle voice spoke. “Hello girlie.”

She sniffed and brushed away the tears, restraining her sobs: she didn’t want the Hunter to worry about her, he had to focus on finding her mum.  
She dragged the old battered chair near the window and climbed on top of it, putting her tiny hands near the little chink on the window that allowed her to look outside. “Hello Mister Hunter. Still can’t find my mum?” a long silence followed, but she could hear him shift his weight from one foot to the other.

“Not… really.” He scratched the back of his neck “But I’ve started to think you are not that safe into this house.” She took a deep breath, wiping away the last tears “What makes you say so? No beast has entered the place yet.” He grabbed the edge of the window chink, making her look towards his eyes, two fair lighted orbs surrounded by darkness and blood. “You said well: they haven’t entered the place _yet._ I know somewhere safer you should go to.”  
The girl looked at him with watery eyes “I can’t leave my grandpa behind. And my sister…” “I can think about your sister and help out. Please- I need to know you’re somewhere safe.”

“Mister Hunter…” she finally noticed that behind all that blood she could spot his wide and scared eyes. He looked really tense “What happened to you?” he gulped “It doesn’t matter. You must come with me, please.” “I can’t, if mum and daddy come back-“ “ _Please,_ girlie, you must listen to me!”  
Realization dawned on her. “What happened to my mum, Mister Hunter?” her voice cracked at the end of the sentence, a little sob escaping her lips. “Just come with me!” “What happened to her?” she screamed, unable to accept his oblivious behavior any more, but he couldn’t speak; her eyes started watering again. 

“Girlie…” he lowered his gaze, his hat conveniently covering his eyes. He sniffed sharply and his fingers quietly opened, leaving a bloodied red brooch on the glass of the window. “I’m so sorry.”

She gathered the brooch between her hands and brought it to her chest.  
“Oh… was it really her?” the Hunter grabbed the edge of the window with both hands this time, his voice trembling in his own throat. “Please, you must listen to me…”  
But the girl had dropped her head and was visibly shaking, strangled whines escaping from her mouth. “Mummy… please… don’t leave me alone…”

“Girlie!” the Hunter could just stare at her little form as she disappeared from the window. He tried to soothe her pain with reassuring words, but nothing could stop her from weeping. After a while, she stopped listening to him, simply falling asleep underneath the table, her face covered with her own tears and her mother’s brooch tightly grasped against her chest.

\---

He had desperately tried to tell her about Oedon chapel but she just wouldn’t listen, and he couldn’t really blame her. He hoped she had understood she had to wait for him, that he would be back soon enough.

Since he wasn’t going anywhere with it, he had given up on the girl and decided to continue his job, slashing those same creatures that had killed her mother; he did his best not to think about the werewolf he had fought near Viola’s corpse, but he had seen how he cringed at the sound of the music box: he had to be the father.

Poor girl.  
She was so young, she didn’t deserve this, any of this. He had thought about breaking into her house but he kept reminding himself that giving her time was the best thing to do.  
After meeting Alfred and finding another lantern buried deep inside the city, near the doors that led to the older part of Yahrnam, he decided to go back to check on the girl.

He swirled and dodged every hit of the beasts until he breathlessly stopped in front of the house, leaning with his hands on his knees and taking deep breaths. He tapped gently on the window once more, immediately noting the darkness that was enveloping the room at the other side of the glass. “Hey… girlie…” He still hadn’t stopped wheezing, but something was completely off and the ominous feeling that made his hair stand on end had just made a shiver run down his spine.  
He circled around the house and found the door open: as he peeked inside he saw an old man sitting on a wheel chair, his head lowered and an empty glass bottle laying in the hand that was resting on his lap. The Hunter tried to pace towards him but he soon realized he wasn’t moving. He pressed his pointer and middle finger against the man’s jugular, but there was no beat.

He lowered his head and muttered a quick and silent pray before leaving the body and turning around to inspect the room: it was gaunt and shabby, the little furniture that was left was very worn out and had been clearly used a lot; he saw a little object laying on the table: inspecting it more closely, he realized it was one of the sweets he had brought to the girl not too long ago; he found another one of them laying on the ground near the door and so he headed back into the street, carefully inspecting his surroundings: he saw another one near the stairs and so he jumped down and landed a deadly hit on the brute roaming downstairs.  
He quickly looked around and followed the trail to the other ladder, his sixth sense preparing him for the worst, while he stubbornly kept going deeper and deeper inside the sewers. He was running by now towards the end of them, no sign of the kid yet. Then, he spotted a little snowflake at the end of the tunnel, drenched in mud and blood.

“No…” he ran even faster and glided down beside the tiny corpse, taking her between his arms: he desperately brought her face near his cheek, waiting to sense her breathing, to see her moving again, but nothing happened. He stared into her dead eyes and bit down his lower lip, sprinting to the side just in time to evade the giant pig’s attack; he glared at it with wide eyes, rage overtaking him: as the boar tried to chomp him he quickly dodged to the side and landed a kick on its jaw, making it roll on its side.

Muttering a silent apology to the girl, he carefully placed her body on the ground and drew his weapon, opening a wide gash in the toppled pig’s belly with a single hit. He threw the blade to his side and plunged his armored fingers inside the wound, gripping at its guts and yanking them away, making the pig roar in pain as he eviscerated it.  
He knew it mattered little. He knew it would be born again soon enough, just as any other creature that populated the nightmarish night of the Hunt, but he wanted to make it pay for what it had done, to make it remember the importance of its sin.

Just when all fell silent again, just when he was ankle deep in beast intestines, completely covered in a thick layer of crimson blood, he turned his back to it and picked the girl in the stained white dress.  
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, focusing on the rune that would bring him back home.

\---

_Chunk. Shaa. Chunk. Shaa._

The shovel dug easily into the soft ground, almost as if the earth itself was trying to ease the process that brought more bodies into it; almost as if its only purpose was to bury and preserve fallen hunters.  
The Hunter had never stopped thinking about all the tombstones around the place: he didn’t want to think even hunters could die. He didn’t want to think he could as well.

_Chunk. Shaa._

He kept on digging, afraid he wouldn’t be able to think straight if he thought about what had just happened. Thinking that the little enveloped corpse laying on the ground behind him was more than just that. That it was a person. That it was… a friend.

He dropped the shovel and lifted his hat with one hand, brushing away the sweat on his forehead with the back of his gloved palm.  
He inhaled sharply, trying to force himself to look at it and finish with the burying; he found himself unable to turn around, his gaze locked on one of the distant trees that were visible from the dream.  
He closed his eyes and dropped the hat he had been holding in his hand, fighting back against the urge to cry, to scream at the cosmos how unfair it had been towards him. Towards _her._

He clenched his fists tighter at his sides, when a soothing voice rang into his ears.  
“Good hunter, why are you upset?”

He tilted his head to the side, his mask muffling lightly his words “I’m not, Doll.”

She looked at him and then at the body wrapped in the blanket laying on the ground. She crouched next to it and the Hunter let her do it while exhaling deeply, still unable to move. She opened the blanket so to expose the girl’s face.  
“Who was she?” she softly caressed the kid’s hair, straightening them near her cheek. “I don’t know.” The Hunter couldn’t help but sigh. “Was she important to you?” he bitterly smiled “I barely knew her.”  
“But you cared for her.” Doll stood up and got near the Hunter “I can tell by the way you look at her: it’s the same way you look at me.”

“She looked so… helpless. And I let her down.” The Hunter shook his head and lifted his palm to brush away a tear that was running down his cheek; “How can I end the Hunt if I can’t even-“ he shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index.  
He lowered his hand as he felt two cold, delicate hands gently grasping his cheeks: Doll pulled his mask down and he leaned slightly into her touch; “Dear hunter, you can’t save everyone; but that doesn’t mean you should let your heart falter, nor make you resolution be sicklied by the uncertainties cast from loss.” He slowly opened his eyes, meeting her glassy ones.

“You are a good man, keen hunter.” She smiled and he managed to smile back, caressing her hands and enveloping her palms in his larger ones. “Thank you. I think I needed to hear that.” He gently pushed her hands away and turned around, glancing at the kid’s face. He knelt beside her and lifted her in his arms, stepping back in front of Doll. She helped him place the tiny corpse into the hole he had been digging: he stared down at it when he suddenly felt Doll placing her hand in his, squeezing it lightly.

He exhaled deeply “She’s in peace now, at least.”


End file.
